A Pug's Journey (Cultivation Starts with Breathing)

Sali told me that she wanted to join the provincial tournament. She called it "good practice against people."

Then I agreed. It was safe since she needed to be able to do proper combat where medics and healers stood close. And since I was here, there was enough assurance that nothing would happen to her.

We've lived quietly since Sunmire, since our parting with Rinvara at the Southern border.

Work, rest, and short contracts under the Guild's eye. We planned to keep it that way. But plans do not always hold. Twice, I had to revert back to full-size to keep Sali alive when danger came. Especially those that eyed elves in this continent. Slavery was frowned upon, but legal here.

The bell rang. "Begin."

Sali drew and loosed arrows with a steady pace. Most of her arrows were plain, but a few she tried to imbue with mana for a stronger impact.

The man who was fighting her, Callen Vierre, was clearly trained and very careful. And he was also merciful. He looked for a clean finish without undue harm for Sali.

This was why I went easy on him; I raised my paw and set it down.

Pressure pressed down on the sand and he stepped back.

He tried again at a better angle. I lifted the paw and held it there. The air thickened just enough to warn. He eased off.

Sali stayed calm and kept shooting, lips moving as she counted what was left in the quiver.

Her mana was running low. Despite our ten years being together, she was not graced with an awakening. I tried to help her, but maybe there was too much of a difference in species. So, we stopped trying to force it. It will come when it does.

Sali had two arrows left.

It was time to end it.

I raised my paw and dropped it.

He went flat, breath pushed out in a short sound. I held the pressure even, enough to pin him down. But the man tried to fight back.

I lifted my paw and set it down again.

Second drop. He still stayed conscious.

Third drop. He turned his head to keep breathing.

He was almost out.

Then the fourth drop. He finally went still.

I ended the pressure and set my paw down like nothing had happened.

The healer reached him at once, pressed something below his ear, and nodded to the judge.

"Ring Two. Winner: Sali, the Beasttamer," the announcer called.

The crowd erupted. They did not know her name, but they liked what they saw.

Callen Vierre went out on a stretcher. The healer sealed the bruise under his ear and set a tonic under his tongue. A junior walked beside the stretcher with a kit and a quiet face. Since I didn't do any permanent damage, he should be fine.

Sali wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. Sweat beaded at her hairline. She tried to stand straight and ended up rocking on her heels like a child who wanted praise and a snack.

She smiled at me.

I huffed. "You can do better next time," I said. "You need to be able to properly imbue mana in your arrows."

Her smile faltered, then steadied. "Okay."

She bent, scooped me up, and tucked me under one arm. She liked to carry me around like this for some reason.

We left the ring and returned back to the waiting room.

Inside, fighters sat with their heads back and their eyes closed. The clerk at the end table sorted slips by bracket and time. Sali set me on the bench, then reached for the free water and drank.

"You only managed to use mana on five arrows," I said.

She nodded, counting on her fingers. "I tried. It's really hard, you know?"

"You'll eventually learn it," I said. "Practice when you're not tired."

She made a face and then laughed at herself. "I will."

Sali leaned back and let her fingers play with the fletching of her remaining arrows.

Ten years together had made us comfortable around each other.

She was surprised after she woke up at the border at the forest, seeing me in my large form. She did not know what I was at first. And panicked and cried, then she eventually settled down when she saw me try to calm her down with words.

She called me "boss" and "sir" in turns, trying to see what made me react.

But after I explained who I really was, she stared for a long time and then whispered the words her mother used in stories.

"Sunmire Godbeast."

I told her never to say it in public. She nodded and broke into a grin that did not stop for a full minute.

We had been careful since Sunmire. It took us four months of travel to reach Sunmire's southern border. But alarming news reached us in a market town nearby, just shy of reaching there. On a bulletin board, there was a black ribbon at the corner.

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Grand Vicar Solar Talem had died.

What did this mean? Did I no longer have a place in Sunmire? Surely, right? I couldn't help but doubt since there were barely any people who wanted me there. Maybe Rinvara and Saphiel? Perhaps the orphanage? Eline still owed me. Bishop Tharne, if I stretched our relations a bit.

Huh. There weren't that many.

But since we were already near, I thought it would be best to seek shelter in Sunmire before planning our next move.

Our reunion was brief. Rinvara was already waiting for me with Mira. They were outside in the forest with no one around. I questioned how in my mind, but any lingering doubts about how she felt about me were erased when I saw how she reacted when she sensed me.

She turned towards me and let out a breath of relief. She looked smaller than I remembered. She looked tired.

I stepped close and she reached her arm out to my giant paw.

She played with it for a bit and then she shook her head. "You cannot stay," she said.

Mira also spoke. "It is not safe for both of you."

Rinvara then pushed my paw away. "Go," she said. "Now. I'll find you in the future."

I trusted her. I trusted the look on her face more than any list of facts. It held relief that I was alive, and a look of happiness that she managed to meet me again.

And so, there was no sense for us to go back to Sunmire or to the Silvanth Forests. The next closest place would be Ferron, but that was not an option.

There was one final destination left.

We crossed to the Central Continent by ship.

I did not like the idea. Without Tidemother's Embrace, the sea felt less like a mother and more like something that could pull me down. We couldn't use airships, not with patrols examining every passenger twice and requiring official documents for moving between continents.

Thankfully, security for large ships were basically nil, and you only needed to pay to ride it.

There was also Sali's pleading, since it would be her first time boarding a ship.

I said yes, and told myself it was reluctance. The truth, though, was that I also wanted to know what a real ocean was like

The first answer the sea gave me was nausea.

By sunset of the first day, the world had started to tilt, and the deck's slow heave worked at my insides. Salt stung my nose. I leaned over a cup she got me, bargaining with whatever god made me ride this cursed thing.

I kept it together, mostly. There are more details I choose not to dignify with written memory.

Sali ran out of excitement in four days. The ship no longer meant escape or adventure; it meant boredom at just looking at the endless horizon.

She took to counting the seams on torn sails and timing the bells. By the second week, her boredom had turned aggressive. She looked ready to do anything to relieve herself of boredom.

The apprentice cook saved us. He'd fillet seagame on a barrel, slice it thin, sear it with pepper and lemon, and pass the plate across with a wink since we were technically his test subjects.

Sali found a new religion in those plates as she tried out crabs, lobsters, and other types of sea cuisine. I could manage a few pieces on steady days. On the others, the smell alone sent me staggering back.

Why did people like eating those sea roaches?

Nothing else happened. Which meant everything was going right.

Two quiet weeks, then we reached land. When Sali carried me off the ship, I licked the ground with my eyes closed, thankful at the solid stone under me. We had finally arrived at a small town's dock. Here, we started a new life.

We registered as adventurers because it provided a way for us to live. In this continent, basically anyone could; after all, as long as you were capable of clearing a dungeon, they didn't care about your past. Fallen nobles, vagrants, small-time criminals, runaways, and etc.

Sali paid a fee, signed a book, and receive a badge. The guild mostly had different rules about awakened and unawakened adventurers.

If you were awakened, you could take on more and earn more, and you were offered classes with competent instructors instead of being left to whatever the common folk had to earn a living for.

So I pushed Sali to register as awakened, officially. I became her tamed beast.

The desk clerk squinted between Sali and me while she wrote our particulars. When she asked if I had a collar or a sigil for link-binding, Sali said we would arrange one later.

The clerk's mouth thinned. She stamped our cards a little too hard and pointed us to the training yard for evaluation.

By the time we reached the yard, the whispers had already circled. A little black beast with a weird face that no one had ever seen before being carried by an elven girl?

Someone called out, "Does it do tricks?" Someone else: "Housebroken?"

He asked Sali to do a few tests to showcase her capabilities; and as an elf who had undergone basic training, she was proficient with a bow. Next was to test if Sali was actually awakened.

He nodded, marked his paper, and then looked at me. To keep the act up, I waited for Sali to order me.

I set my paw on the worn plank they used as a target. A controlled slide, four claws, intent clear.

Wood parted as five parts fell to the floor.

The yard went from loud to quiet in an instant, clearly curious. The instructor crouched, ran a finger along the cut, and hissed once under his breath. He wrote something different on the paper.

Thankfully, this was enough for them to come up with conjectures on their own.

An elf in these parts weren't that uncommon. But one that had an awakened beast? That was something completely different.

Awakened beasts existed. Rare, yes. Not impossible. Partly, they started seeing the elven girl as lucky for chancing on a young awakened beast, taming it.

Then, eventually, work followed. We did escort runs for caravans. We cleaned cellars that had rodent infestations. And once we had enough coin to buy proper equipment for Sali, we started to do support work in basic dungeons.

The jobs were simple enough to keep us fed and moving. Sali took the lead with clients. She liked talking. I, on the other hand, watched and listened and learned. No one would expect the tiny beast staring at them with bulging eyes to understand them after all.

Sometimes, when we camped on the road, Sali would fall asleep hugging me as if she was afraid I'd disappear. On those nights, I would lie awake and pretend to sleep, watching everything around me.

There were a few attempts on Sali, be it for slavery or for other despicable acts, but I handled it all. I'm pretty sure the soil in some parts outside the cities were thriving with good fertilizer now.

Eventually, we landed ourselves in Duramark. Since we had already saved up a bit of coin, I wanted Sali to learn more. So I told her to enroll in school.

Sali thrived in the classrooms. She brought home notes and drills, studying more about the practical stuff of combat and sleeping in on history lessons.

Two full years had passed in the Central Continent before I noticed how little my body and Qi changed. My growth had slowed to a crawl. What did change was control. I could apply Claw Intent in new ways. My Qi had inched forward as well.

Sali's progress was easier to see. Her scouting and archery became better, and she stopped second-guessing herself when she didn't need to.

Now, I wanted more growth from her. So, I told her that it was time to get out of her comfort zone. I told her it was time to expand her role. Back-line comfort only goes so far. She needed to learn how to dive dungeons by herself.

We trained for it, albeit slowly.

The next five-ish years set a clear pattern. We stayed in Duramark, took work, rested, and took more work. We did not chase fame for its own sake, but we eventually stopped hiding from it. Our name in the Guild's ledger gathered fame of its own, only amongst Duramark adventurers.

I also didn't hear much news about Sunmire's new Grand Vicar. After all, they needed to be at least an upper Phase-1 like Talem was, but the other bishops were only barely touching Phase-1 at most, only being at lower Phase-1.

News of my siblings grew, though. They became more famous, especially the Saintess of Sunmire—Rinvara, though she had a different public name now. Eline also had a few more published papers to her name. Saphiel and Vaelric were now both stationed to the western border, fighting against Zorthar.

Being visible served another purpose. I wanted Rinvara to find me without exposing her to risk. A small awakened black beast tamed by an elven beasttamer would just be curious information by itself, but it is a detail that only my sister knows about me.